Sunday, March 31, 2013

The Vision of Paolo Soleri

Architecture is the most public art form, says filmmaker Lisa Scafuro, whose graceful, probing and socially relevant new documentary, The Vision of Paolo Soleri: Prophet in the Desert, covers the life and works of a truly special architect.
Paolo Soleri first immigrated to the United States to apprentice under Frank Lloyd Wright, but eventually struck out on his own after his personal vision began to take form. For decades, Soleri urged mankind to change its way of
thinking and let go of the perception of The
American Dream. "It is a myth," he boldly stated. It's a myth, he explained,
in the sense that it's been thrust upon the world instead of rising organically from nature: the ideal of
materialism and hyper-consumption, he thought, resulted ultimately in wastefulness and a lack of fulfillment. But he was no run-of-the-mill anarchist. As an alternative to consumer culture, he called for a radical change in attitude and focused
his own, considerable actions on the conservation of land, energy, and natural resources.

Now in his nineties, he continues to
work toward these ideals under star-filled skies at his base in the Arizona desert. Yet Soleri's vision remains
largely unrealized. Given the zeitgeist of global crisis, Soleri's life's
work has become increasingly relevant to world dilemmas, and his
ideologies have become — prophetic.